Rural Colorado counties pursue split from state

Weld County is leading the charge to ask rural Colorado voters if they'd like to petition to form a new state

Jun. 7, 2013

Weld County commissioners, from left, Mike Freeman, Sean Conway and Douglas Rademacher. The commissioners are pursuing a plan to splinter from the state of Colorado and create a new state. / Courtesy 9NEWS

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Split states

When new states formed out of other ones and why: • 1863 – West Virginia splintered from Virginia over the belief that Virginia had acted illegally to secede from the Union and join the Confederacy. • 1861 – Nevada Territory broke from the Utah Territory and became a state in 1864, assuring its mineral riches could help finance the Civil War. • 1820 – Maine broke from Massachusetts over discontent stemming from Massachusetts’ political power over its growing population. • 1789 – Tennessee was ceded by North Carolina to shed remote settlements and became a state in 1796. • 1776 – Vermont left New York, which had squabbled with New Hampshire about dominion over Vermont, and became the first state outside of the original 13 colonies in 1791.

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County commissioners from rural Northeastern Colorado are pursuing a plan to splinter from the state and create a new one following a legislative session that they say ignored the values that are the fabric of the region.

Such a drastic step has not been taken since the nation was at war with itself 150 years ago.

“Our vision and our morals are no longer represented by the state (Legislature) and the current (governor’s) administration, and we think it’s time that we do take seriously what our options are,” said Weld County Commissioner Douglas Rademacher. “This is just one of our options, but we will be moving forward with it.”

Colorado’s Democratically controlled Legislature this year passed laws to tighten gun control, increase reliance on renewable energy in rural areas and curb perceived cruel treatment of livestock. It mulled expanded regulation of oil and gas production, but those plans were narrowly defeated.

Talks of the split between citizens and local leaders in the predominantly Republican Eastern Plains began as the Legislature debated those issues, according to Weld County Commissioner Sean Conway.

“Northern and Northeastern Colorado and our voices are being ignored in the legislative process this year, and our very way of life is under attack,” he said.

At a gathering of county commissioners from throughout the state this week, a member of the House Democrats’ leadership team vowed to bring back proposals for stricter environmental standards for the oil and gas industry. That elevated the conversation about an Eastern Plains split from Colorado, Conway said.

In the weeks ahead, commissioners in Weld County and others are poised to hold hearings about the proposed break with an eye on referring ballot questions in the individual counties by Aug. 1 for the November election.

If voters adopted such a measure, it would ask the Legislature to petition Congress for creation of a new state. The General Assembly and the governor would need to approve the request.

House Speaker Mark Ferrandino, D-Denver, said it would be premature to say whether such a plan would stand a chance in the Legislature.

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“If the voters of those counties vote that way, one thing about a democracy that you have to respect is a vote of the people,” he said.

But on a personal level, Ferrandino said he sees the plan as misguided and ideologically driven.

“This is one of those cases where you don’t get what you want, so there’s no compromise,” he said. “It’s my way or the highway — that’s what we’re hearing from Commissioner Conway. They don’t like the direction things are going, even though the voters spoke in November. They’re just behind the times in where Colorado is.”

The interests of the state as a whole must be balanced with its individual parts, according to a spokesman for Gov. John Hickenlooper, a Democrat.

“Background checks on gun sales, increasing renewable energy and supporting responsible development of oil and gas are popular with rural and urban voters,” Eric Brown said. “Not everyone agrees, of course. But we keep trying.”

Much remains to be determined about which counties are on board for separation votes. Weld County commissioners confirmed that their counterparts in Morgan, Logan, Sedgwick, Phillips, Washington, Yuma and Kit Carson counties have been involved in the conversation.

“We’re not excluding anybody,” Conway said. “We don’t know how many counties this could be. There’s been discussions that this could include the entire Eastern Plains of Colorado eventually.”

Conway said as he envisions it, the coalition — which could call itself “the 51st Star Committee”— would share rural characteristics, such as economies dependent on agriculture and oil and gas, and be contiguously joined. Even some Nebraska counties could seek to be released from that state to join the proposed new state, he said.

It appears unlikely Larimer County will be among the counties that could break from Colorado.

“I’m happy with being in the state of Colorado and have no interest in splitting from the state,” said Larimer County Commissioner Lew Gaiter, a Republican. “If there were a vote tomorrow to put this on the ballot here, I’d be a no vote.”

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Larimer County Commissioner Steve Johnson, also a Republican, expressed his opposition to the idea even more emphatically.

“It’s just plain crazy,” he said, “no other way to describe it.”

Conway defended the merits of the plan. He said the oil and gas revenue that Weld County contributes to the state far outweighs what is returned to the county for public schools, roads and other services.

“We’re always at the end of the line when it comes to funding for these priorities,” he said.

Although the exact counties that could seek to join a new state have not been firmly identified, Conway expects the swath would include a population greater than six existing states. Its estimated size would warrant a lone representative in Congress and the two U.S. Senators that every state gets. Its representation in Washington, D.C., would match Wyoming’s.

U.S. Rep. Cory Gardner, a Republican from Yuma, represents the area that could ask to leave Colorado. He could get a chance as a registered voter in Yuma County to advance the question to the Legislature, and — theoretically — he could vote on the matter in Congress.

Gardner divulged no clues as to how he would vote in either situation, but he said he relates to the motivation for this action.

“The people of rural Colorado are mad, and they have every right to be,” Gardner said. “The governor and his Democrat colleagues in the Statehouse have assaulted our way of life, and I don’t blame people one bit for feeling attacked and unrepresented by the leaders in our state.”

Conway would not speculate as to the likelihood that Northeastern Colorado would become a state of its own, but he issued a stern warning to state lawmakers if voters place the question in their lap.

“Politicians that ignore the will of the voters do it at their own peril,” he said.